If I am posting in the wrong section, Please correct me and put this in the right section. I will only make one post.

First of all, I LOVE Splash. I have gone from MPC-HC to XBMC (For the big TV) But I cannot keep away from Splash. This has got to be one of the highest quality products I have ever seen. It is simple, elegant, and what it lacks in features, it makes up for in Solid design. It may not have all the fancy features, but it is solid (As per my experience)

Now on to the important stuff. There are countless people on forums reporting Nvidia Driver crashes, Screen going Blank, and general crashes all around. IF you have done your research and are absolutely sure that the problem is not your Power Supply, RAM, CPU, Hard Drive, etc, then please read more.

Lately, Nvidia has been churning out HORRIBLE Drivers since the late 2xx series. Lousy Programming in an effort to make their power hogging GPUs tone down a notch. One of these features is Powermizer. Its function is to downclock your Graphics Card when you are not watching a Video or doing any 3D related tasks. The problem with this on some PCs is that when an application is started, Windows fails to relay information that 3D APIs are required. In order for the Hardware to react with the Software, it has to go through Windows APIs (Direct X) in which there is a problem. The problem is also in Nvidia's LOUSY Programming which FAILS to enable per Application power Management. Ofourse an average user will have NO Idea about any of this. So who is to blame? BOTH Nvidia and Microsoft.
This is a WIDESPREAD Problem that neither company acknowledges. From a business perspective, its a perfect strategy. Get more people to buy NEWER hardware, then introduce drivers a year later that will break this hardware. SHAMEFUL tactics.

So, when you start your PC, after the bootup process, an application called GPU-Z can be used to see your Video card status including its SPEED. Original Clock vs power saving (downclocking). If you are on a Desktop, you do not want this feature. It is the root cause of all the frustrations.

To disable this problem, you have to edit the Registry.

1) Start --> Type Regedit

2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Video

3) Locate the folder 0000 - There will be a few of these inside something like {53E1DF91-38ED-4BF7-9A9F-A94922760206}

4) Find the first 0000 folder that has the MOST Values in it, including Hardware Driver information.

5) In this folder you will create a DWord or QWord depending on your Windows. If it is 32 bit, create a DWord. If it is 64 bit, create a QWord.

6) Right click anywhere inside the 0000 folder, and create DWord or QWord entries as follows:

PerfLevelSrc
Hit Enter and give it a value
2222
---Continue making entries and give them the value I specify:

PowerMizerDefault 3
PowerMizerDefaultAC 0
PowerMizerEnable 0

7) The Most important entry here is PowerMizerEnable 0

This turns OFF the power management feature allowing your video card to be ready for 3D apps at any moment so there is no Latency in Voltage offset.

The reason the PC Crashes with PowerMizer enabled is due to Voltage (in my case it goes down to 1.000V) which I need to be at 1.15.

Restart your computer! From now on, your HTPC will simply work with the newest Nvidia drivers. I am using the driver version 310.70 64bit

There are LOTS of Google posts about this dating all the way back to 2009. Nvidia has NOT fixed this issue and they do not allow such control of their products so one has to manually do it.

I recommend starting your PC in SAFE MODE, Use Driver Sweeper to get RID of your old drivers, Restart again in Safe mode with the Internet Disconnected, and install the Newest Nvidia Drivers and do a Custom (Clean) Install.

This is NOT a SPLASH Player problem. I hope this helps. May not be the best written article, but I hope it helps those who are on their wits end with Nvidia.